"Parliamentary elections, which the opposition wants boycotted, are due in November and presidential elections will be held in September next year."

The Guardian said the protest also spread to Alexandria, where it was reported that 30 demonstrators were arrested and women had their clothes torn. In Cairo journalists were among those beaten.

"They have been beating us. You can see the blood on my neck. We are a republic, not a kingdom," said a supporter of Mohamed ElBaradei, who formerly ran the International Atomic Energy Agency and is considered a potential rival presidential candidate to Gamal Mubarak.

"If Gamal Mubarak becomes president, this country will go to hell. He cares only about businessmen.

"The people of Egypt are all dying. We are dying of poverty and we are dying of a lack of freedom."

Referring to the 1882 uprising, when Ahmed Orabi declared that Egyptians should no longer be slaves, the protester said: "After 30 years of Hosni Mubarak's rule we are saying the same thing today: we should not be slaves."

Later protesters tried to break out of the security cordon. Sympathetic bystanders threw in water bottles to trapped demonstrators.

Another protester said: "I am 30 years old and I still have not got enough money to marry. I can't find a job. Tell the world to help us. We are dying under Mubarak. Send an SOS."

He then set fire to a picture of Gamal Mubarak. "We are supposed to be a democracy even though everyone knows it's a sham. We will not stand by while the presidency passes from father to son."

Added the newspaper: "Gamal Mubarak has long been associated with a series of neoliberal privatisation reforms which have proved unpopular with many Egyptians."

An overwhelming majority of people are happy to be living in this industrial capitalist world. We know this because we are told it constantly.
How could we foresee a near future in which the hypnotic spell is broken, the scales fall from a billion eyes and those who say 'Enough!' are revealed, all of a sudden, to be a gale force wind of revolt, a tidal wave of insurgent delight sweeping all before it, a minority so vast it will change everything?